Urban Heritage Photography:
Old Havana

by Colleen Prather – April 2018
(Originally published at the Images Alberta Camera Club Website)

The Images Alberta Camera Club invited renowned photographer Rick Hulbert to be a guest speaker at the regular club meeting held on April 12, 2018. Rick is a retired architect and urban planner and has honed his photography skills as a way to capture the essence of urban life. His presentation to the club on Old Havana was told from the perspective of his architectural training and how to use the camera to capture the colour and depth of the buildings, the people, and the culture.

The objective of the presentation was to demonstrate a new way to look at the world around us and another way to see and capture three-dimensional details in a two-dimensional image. Urban photography is about people and objects in places or within spaces. Rick demonstrated how he sees the world in a photographic image – from the vertical lines, to the horizontal lines, to the leading lines, and also how he conveys the story of the people, objects, and places. He creates the opportunity to capture an image by observing, planning, and engaging in dialogue with individuals to learn these stories.

Rick mentioned that urban travel photography is one of the fastest growing genres of photography. People want to know how to capture the essence of the places they visit so they can share those experiences with friends and family back home, or simply revisit the memories by looking back at their images.

The presentation by Rick was engaging and dynamic, which was also a reflection of his personality and how he approaches urban photography. Some of the main takeaways included understanding that buildings, places, and people all have a story, and as an artist, we need to consider how we want to portray these stories in a respectful and honest way.